– The Arafat Legacy

Turns Out, Arafat Wasn't Really Interested in Peace After All
israpundit.com

Hey, who knew?

Buried in several of Hammoudeh's conversations with an "unidentified male" in October 2000 is surprising inside information on the private views of Palestinian Authority's leader Yasser Arafat about ongoing peace negotiations... Despite what Arafat was saying publicly about supporting the negotiations, Hammoudeh's telephone conversations tell a different story...

Unidentified Male: "Abu Ammar (Arafat) told me that everything has been screwed up . . . Since February (he) has been hopeless, finished. From February . . . eight months ago . . . (Arafat) has had a closing with this Barak . . . I sat with (Arafat) in his room and he told me: 'It's useless.' But he doesn't say this on television. He says 'my partner.' "We sat with (Arafat) . . . and he told me that it was over . . . and we should seek other avenues. . . . "Do whatever you see fit. Military action if you want to, or whatever. . . . I will not interfere.' " He offered this summary of Arafat's private words to him: "Proceed and do not be afraid. Anything I do or say, ignore me."

Of course, it turns out that pretty much everybody knew that Arafat wasn't realy interested in peace - but they kept playing along anyway, hoping against hope that more land would somehow transform an unrepentant, anti-Semitic terrorist into a dignified statesman. Back then, the conventional wisdom was that if there's no partner for peace you close your eyes really hard and try to pretend that there is (we're only being half-sarcastic here - recall Rabin's determination to "work for peace as if there was no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there was no peace"). Somehow, that strategy failed to yield a sustainable peace process.